


cut through the noise

by throughthemist



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Happy Ending, M/M, Recovery, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 12:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17622275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughthemist/pseuds/throughthemist
Summary: "By the time they found him in Bucharest, the star was gone."





	cut through the noise

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved Bucky being a bit vain and thought it would be cool to explore that side of him helping with his recovery! Enjoy!

By the time they found him in Bucharest, the star was gone.

After pulling Steve from the debris filled waters of the Potomac, Bucky fled. Everything he thought he knew was being questioned, and the only thought he could grab onto was the visceral snarl of ‘run’ that was flashing through his mind. Bucharest seemed as good a city as any to hide in, with a language he could somehow speak and enough people to allow him to vanish in the crowds. The bustle of the city soothed something deep inside him, something Bucky didn’t even realise was missing until the smell of the polluted city air and the noise from the thousands of cars and people filled his senses. After the isolation of the past 70 years, the commotion of the city appeared to him like a beautiful chaos. The total anonymity he had in the face of this city, with it’s millions of people who all had individual lives, was breathtaking and cathartic.

Bucky followed his instincts to an old, abandoned Hydra safehouse just on the outskirts of the city centre. At first glance it looked like any other run-down shop, with newspapers and graffiti covering what would once have been a lively family bakery, however the inconspicuous shop-front hid a large basement flat decked out with weaponry and survival food that would keep him alive for months, if not years, to come. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Bucky’s memories came back sporadically; there was no rhyme or reason to their return, sometimes days went past when all he would recover were vague flashes of a life lived, while some days it seemed he got back years at a time. All he could do was hole up in the dank basement flat on his bad days, letting the dreams and nightmares wash over him until he was too exhausted to think any longer. He wrote everything down in a notebook he had bought on one of his better days; it would do no good to remember everything just to forget it again. Occasionally, on calmer days with fewer memory onslaughts, Bucky would read through what he had written and harshly scribble passages out - it was easier to sort through what were his real memories and what were distorted nightmares in the light of a new day.

One of the first things Bucky recovered was his sense of self - maybe he didn’t have all the memories of his life back, didn’t completely understand what it meant to be ‘Bucky Barnes’, but he knew he wasn’t the Winter Soldier. Would never be again. Which was why the bold red star branded onto his left shoulder had to go. The metal arm itself was a painful reminder of what he had endured, but was too useful to destroy (if he could even work out how) and the star was a sign of ownership he had to rid himself of. He thought of buying silver paint at the small DIY store a few roads away to cover it, but the idea of the star just being hidden beneath a thin layer of paint was sickening and too much like a metaphor for the programming he knew was still in his brain, only cloaked by his burgeoning memories. Scratching it off was the only logical conclusion. Grabbing the nearest knife and crudely scraping the metal created the most horrific grating sound, but Bucky had never heard anything more satisfying. The result was functional, if not exactly pretty, with harsh lines gouged through the centre of the star. Looking in the lone, dusty mirror in the flat, Bucky felt a sense of pride at his destruction - it was perfect.

After ridding himself of one visual reminder of Hydra, it was time to give up another - the safehouse. The underlying fear of being recaptured was slowly diminishing with every passing day, aided by the increasing store of memories he was building up, and Bucky knew it was time to find somewhere new he could continue his recovery. Memories of Brooklyn, of his family, and the ever present companionship of Steve, were pressing on his mind, but Bucky wasn’t yet ready to confront them. So, he found himself a ramshackle studio flat that the landlord allowed him to rent on a weekly basis, and set up shop. The flat itself was functional, if rundown and ugly even to Bucky’s low standards, but the addition of light and fresh air made it worth it. The safehouse might have been easy to defend and hard to find, but this place let him heal. He packed it full of stuff he was never allowed to use under Hydra - his favourite was the beat up radio he bought from a second hand store that was stuck on a station playing only 90’s pop - and stacks and stacks of notebooks full of his memories.

Looking back on the moment the red star was scratched off forever, Bucky pinpoints it as one of the defining moments in his recovery. He renounced Hydra and all they had made him by destroying their symbol.   
The Winter Soldier was dead.

 

***

 

Upon waking up from cryo in Wakanda, Bucky was presented with the sight of a generous king, a genius princess, a beaming best friend, and an impressive array of cybernetic arms. 

Shuri had designed multiple arms with his exact measurements, all created for the best comfort and usability, and the choice of which one to wear was his. Her promise of him no longer having to endure harsh pulling on his muscles or bad connections to his nerves was music to his ears.

Some of the arms were obviously made with battle in mind - arms with built in shields, hidden compartments that could perfectly house bullets or knives, even one that would detach parts that people had a hold of - but some were so intricately realised they looked like the perfect pair to his flesh and blood arm. The temptation to choose one of those arms was strong, but it was residual fear fuelling that temptation rather than genuine want, afterall it would be much easier to go on the run with an inconspicuous arm like that. In Bucharest, Bucky was never without long sleeves and gloves no matter the temperature. There was also the fact that, in spite of everything that had happened, his best friend was still one Steven Grant Rogers and Bucky had first hand experience knowing that being best friends with him led to nothing but trouble. Maybe literally having a few tricks up his sleeve wouldn’t be the worst thing, not if he could choose how to use them and who against. He wasn’t ready to jump back into the fight like Steve was, but he still wanted to be prepared for anything this new life could throw at him. After careful deliberation, Bucky decided on a sleek, black, vibranium arm that was patterned with an intricate gold design. It was objectively beautiful, and true to her word, Shuri made sure it was so comfortable he could almost forget it was metal at all.

Most importantly though, it was his. It was completely Bucky’s choice and if he chose the arm that looked the furthest from his previous one, well, nobody could blame him.

 

***

 

Bucky would admit to being vain.

He guesses it’s just one of those annoying character traits that sticks around through poverty, war, and brainwashing. He couldn’t shake it. And a big focus of his vanity was on his hair. In the 40’s he had styled it slicked back and parted like all the cool guys did, and even if he didn’t have their fashionable clothes he still looked great (and the amount of dates he was asked on confirmed other people thought he looked great too). He revelled in the attention being ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ brought him and always took the time to make sure his hair was just right.

After moving into a large apartment in Brooklyn with Steve, Bucky had been itching to change his hair. In Bucharest, it wasn’t the biggest issue. It had reminded him of the years he missed and the urge to cut it all off was strong at first, but he couldn’t stand the thought of having sharp scissors near his head. After waking up in Wakanda and making huge strides with his recovery the idea of someone cutting his hair wasn’t quite so abhorrent, it was more the realisation that it would have to be someone he trusted to actually do the cutting. Which narrowed it down to the Avengers, and there was no way he would trust any of them to give him a decent hairstyle. So Bucky learnt to embrace his long hair.

That didn’t mean it never annoyed him though. Even pulled back in a bun or ponytail, strands would invariably escape and tickle his cheeks or go in his eyes. After a two day stakeout with Natasha where his hair had been particularly irritating, causing him to be more of a grump than usual, he found a neatly wrapped package on his doorstep. Knowing his friend’s sense of humour, Bucky had an idea what it might be and he was proved correct when upon opening the parcel he was confronted with an assortment of brightly coloured, fuzzy scrunchies and a headband with light-up, heart shaped ‘antennae’. The joke was on Nat though, because those hair accessories turned out to be just what he needed when the urge to shave his whole head got a bit too strong.

Bucky was having one of those bad hair days the day of his and Steve’s weekly movie night. They made a point of inviting at least one of their teammates over every week, because they were aware that living away from the compound could create distance between them and the others, and Bucky was more comfortable meeting people in smaller groups. Not that they were the only ones who preferred to have their own home. Sam was still officially based in DC, and when he came down to visit he mainly stayed at theirs, in the ‘spare’ bedroom that might as well have ‘Sam’s room’ painted on the door. Nobody really knew where Clint was, but they all had the suspicion he had relocated his family promptly after the whole Ultron mess. Thor spent most of his time in the new Asgardian settlement in Norway and rarely came to New York for pleasure, which was why they always made a point to invite him over when he was in town. So today really wasn’t a good day for Bucky’s hair to be playing up, because he still hadn’t spent that much time with Thor, and honestly? The guy was intimidatingly beautiful. And funny. And friendly. It was just a lot to deal with on a normal day, but adding bad hair to the mix was not fun for anyone. Even Steve made more of an effort than usual when Thor came around, and actually changed out of beige slacks and a too-tight t-shirt for once.   
And typically, in the last minute rush to get the living room ready and get enough food prepared to feed two super-soldiers and a god, Bucky forgot about the light-up headband he was still sporting (and apparently the legendary kindness and honesty of Captain America doesn’t extend to letting your best guy know they’re about to look stupid in front of a god - good to know, thanks Steve).

Thor didn’t laugh at Bucky though, instead he sighed and looked almost forlorn when he admitted to still missing his own long hair, despite the annoyance it caused (apparently one time he had accidentally singed some off with a bolt of lightning when he was still learning to control his powers - “it wouldn’t stop smoking! Loki didn’t stop laughing at me for a week, and even my own mother teased me about it, such a tragedy.”)   
Bucky hadn’t spent that much time around Thor, so maybe that’s why he found him offering to teach him a traditional Asgardian hairstyle so surprising he could only mutely nod his agreement. Thor sat him down at one of the dining room chairs and very gently took off the headband and started brushing through his hair. He deftly braided three small sections of his hair on both sides, just above his ears, and then tied all the braids together at the back of his head. This, he said, was the best way to stop any annoying strands getting in his face, and from there he could either tie it in a ponytail, leave it loose, or his personal favourite - braid the rest of the hair down and secure the whole plait into a bun.   
“I promise you this, Sergeant Barnes, you could go into a three day long battle with even the most fearsome of contenders and not a single hair would be out of place at the end of it.”

Though movie night wasn’t usually as physically demanding as a three day long battle, Thor had brought his favourite Asgardian mead which was strong enough to even get Steve and Bucky drunk enough to agree to participate in both a dance-off and a ‘who’s the strongest’ series of challenges. Bucky cherishes every happy memory he can, but even he is happy to have forgotten the specifics of that night...according to the noise complaints they received from their neighbours, they had been doing sprint races down their hallway, seeing who could punch through a table the most efficiently (Bucky remembers he had won that one thanks to his vibranium arm) as well as arm wrestling. Bucky had woken up on one of the sofas with completely rumpled clothes, aching muscles, and a vague feeling of nausea settling in his stomach, which was not in any way helped by the view of his trashed living room and the god still asleep on the sofa next to his who, sickeningly, still looked perfect. By some miracle, he managed to get to the bathroom without tripping over any debris from the broken coffee table, and when he looked in the mirror he saw the hairstyle he had completely forgotten about was still pristine. Small mercies.

The rest of the day was dedicated to clean up and Steve dragging both Bucky and Thor door to door to personally apologise to their neighbours, and in the midst of it Bucky forgot all about his hair. It was only the following day that he really got the chance to examine the braids before he took them out to shower and he was shocked by how much he loved them. Since deciding to keep his hair long, he never found a style he really loved and felt himself with, and instead just twisted it up in a bun so he didn’t have to think about it. Looking his best hadn’t been a priority since he became a sergeant in the war, and it was something he sorely missed - he found such joy in putting on his favourite clothes, styling his hair, and showing off a bit.  
After his shower, Bucky went straight to google to find more braids he could try next, and an excitement he hadn’t felt for a while flared up inside him as he taught himself how to french braid.

He wouldn’t deny his vain streak the simple pleasure of taking pride in his appearance, not when it was this fun.

 

***

 

Bucky had been thinking of getting tattoos for a while.

He’d been living in Brooklyn for almost a year before the idea really cemented in his mind. Tattoos were everywhere in modern day New York, from the shops he saw dotted around the city to being on the arms of the barista at his favourite coffee shop. Bucky loved them.

The thought of claiming his body back by filling it with art of his choosing seemed like the perfect way to symbolise his recovery. It was full circle from that first step towards his freedom he took by scratching off the star Hydra had chosen to paint him with - now he could choose exactly what he wanted on his body forever. 

Bucky already knew he wanted a full sleeve of tattoos, and that he wanted them all to mean something personal to him and memorialise his lost loved ones. He’d been mulling it over for a few weeks before he mentioned it to Steve, sure in the knowledge that he only wanted Steve’s art on his body, not anyone else’s. Steve was the only one left in the world who understood where Bucky was coming from, what he had lost and how it felt to be suddenly and completely out of time.   
Not that either of them needed an excuse to spend more time with each other, but there was a certain magic in watching his ideas come to life under Steve’s steady hand, and during the span of a few months they spent hours upon hours crafting a vision in tattoos.

The first thing Bucky wanted tattooed was the most dear to his heart - his family. He had shipped out for basic training at 25, and had returned once after completing his sergeant training half a year later, but that was the last time he had seen his family. His three little sisters would have been 18, 14, and the youngest, Becca, would only have been 10. He remembers getting Steve to draw portraits of them that he carried in the pocket of his army uniform and looked at whenever the war got too much. He knows he must have had them on him when he fell from the train, but he hasn’t seen them since. Part of him wanted to search every Hydra base he and his team had destroyed, but the logical part of his brain knew he would never find them. Besides, Steve had drawn him portraits of his entire family, the Howling Commandos, and various friends from before and during the war, when he’d come back. He always had at least one in a pocket, one in his wallet, and the others were carefully framed and put up around the apartment.  
Bucky didn’t want those portraits on his body, but something more symbolic. He knew his tattoos would become a talking point in the media, and he’d rather the meaning behind them was cloaked a little, to keep his loved ones close to him, not for the press to pick apart. 

He decided on black and white line drawings of roses and peonies for his mother, who diligently kept her flowers alive in their very modestly sized front garden. She would bring the whole family outside when they were in bloom and gush about the beauty of nature in the midst of the grey city.   
Winifred and George Barnes had grown up in the countryside and had only moved to New York after getting married, hoping to find more work and a place to start their family. Before the depression, they were actually doing pretty well for themselves and Winifred was in her element working at a local florist. Bucky remembers she used to sneak home with any of the flowers that weren’t selling and were going to be thrown away, so their house was always a little brighter than the others on their street. Steve had been entranced by the flowers, always asking to come round to draw them despite the pollen that wreaked havoc with his asthma, and how the little drawing sessions always ended with Winifred having to drag him out the house before he died on her kitchen table.  
Steve remembered the types of flowers the Barnes’ had better than Bucky, but as soon as he had put them onto paper, the memories rushed back to him - summer days spent helping his mother lovingly plant seeds, listening to her soft voice tell him all about the flowers where she herself had grown up, and how she wished for him and his sisters to see it one day.   
Steve’s depiction was perfect and would decorate his right shoulder with joy.

For his father, Bucky could think of nothing better to get than a simple outline of the Empire State Building. Unlike his wife, George Barnes had absolutely loved the city, with all it’s grit and charm. He was a strong, tall, man and throughout Bucky’s childhood he worked as a builder and his pride and joy was the famous Empire State Building that he had helped build. He swore up and down that he scratched ‘Barnes’ into a brick on the side of the building, and despite the claim never being proven true, it made him a hero in Bucky’s young mind. When the tower opened to public all the builders and their families were invited to view it, and the memory of that day is one of the strongest Bucky has of his family all being together. It had been magical, viewing their city from so high up Bucky and his sisters felt like birds. His father had been bursting with pride, and his mother with love, and for one glorious day they had forgotten all about the depression happening just outside the walls of the building and had enjoyed each other’s company with nothing but joy hanging over their heads.   
The outline of the building was to go right next to his mother’s flowers on the inside of his upper arm, and at Steve’s suggestion, six birds were added happily flying around the top of it.

Bucky loved his sisters more than anything in the world. Growing up, he had been their heroic big brother and he had worn the title with pride, always telling them stories of the trouble he and Steve had got up to at school, and how he had stopped yet another gang of bullies hurting his best friend. His mother used to shush him whenever he got into these storytelling moods - she said it wasn’t good for him to tell stories of getting in trouble like it was all fun and games and “James Barnes, if any of these girls come home with detention for trying to recreate one of your little stunts you’ll be in big trouble, young man, do you understand?” - but Bucky had always been a bit of a performer and he couldn’t resist embellishing his stories to entertain his sisters. One of the more imaginative stories had featured a bear and had gone along the lines of “so, me and Stevie are out walking, minding our own business, right? When out of nowhere we hear this horrible growling and we look over and there’s this bear, staring right at us. Of course that’s when Steve, the big idiot, thought it looked hungry and decided to throw the last half of his sandwich at it. I’ll tell you now, the bear did not like that. Anyway, so this bear roars like you’ve never heard before and lunges straight at Steve, so I obviously run in front of him and, this is the best bit, I roar straight back! And the bear looked at me funny, like it was seeing if I was actually a threat, and god’s honest truth, it backed down! Thought I was scarier than it was, can you believe! And when it started walking away, we saw it actually had little bear babies with it, but obviously we didn’t stick around to watch much longer - we ran straight outta there.” In reality, the bear had actually been Mr Collins’ yappy terrier who had just had puppies, but the sentiment was still the same, and so Bucky didn’t feel bad about lying. Besides, his sisters loved the story so much they started calling Bucky their ‘Bucky bear’ because he was just as strong as the biggest bear on the street and would protect them just like the mama bear was trying to protect her babies.   
Steve had never heard Bucky’s version of events from the story, and had laughed for ten straight minutes when he was told the reasoning behind the tattoo Bucky had planned. The actual tattoo design showed a big bear rolling around playing with three younger bear cubs, with one of the cubs being much smaller than the other two. Steve drew it perfectly, and Bucky was sure in his heart that if his sisters were still around they would absolutely love it.   
It was to sit proudly on his upper arm, just underneath his mother’s flowers.

Bucky had always preferred to have a handful of close friends rather than be the most popular guy in school, and during the war he was no different. Leaving Steve behind in Brooklyn had been both a blessing and a curse at the time; he remembers the conflicting emotions of utter relief that Steve wasn’t being dragged to the front lines alongside him, and the loneliness at leaving him behind. When he met the rest of the 107th, he didn’t find his place right away. Like many others he was terrified and alone, and the loud overconfidence of some of the men in the regiment had done nothing to ease the pang of homesickness he felt.   
After Azzano the thought of continuing to fight was terrifying, but with Steve miraculously back by his side it got slightly easier. Together, they handpicked the members of the Howling Commandos, and unbeknownst to Bucky, those men were to become his greatest support and some of the greatest friends he would ever have. The nature of their missions meant they spent a great deal of time travelling across Europe to Hydra base after Hydra base, the monotony of travelling interspersed with the agony of battle in an odd imitation of life, where emotions were forever heightened. The rag-tag group bonded almost instantly, and with Steve’s leadership they rose to prominence as one of the most powerful Allied commando groups. It gave the men of the 107th something to laugh at, knowing they were no doubt on cinema screens back in their respective home countries with the public thinking of them as noble warriors, while in reality they were known around camp bases as ‘those annoying gits who won’t stop pulling stupid pranks on each other’. Bucky had inadvertently instigated the tradition by telling stories of how the now famous ‘Captain America’ had been nothing but a troublemaker, which had been passed around and added to by everyone who told them so much so that Steve had actually been called in by their CO for a lecture on how that type of behaviour wouldn’t be tolerated in his army. After that, it was a pranking free-for-all where nobody was safe.

When Bucky was himself again, one of the first trips he had taken was to the World War 2 memorial in DC where there was a large tribute to the Howling Commandos, all of whom had since passed, wreathed with hundreds of poppies. The trip itself was harrowing but Bucky needed the closure, and he was filled with love and pride for his friends when he went on to read about the lives they got to live after the war ended. Steve got in contact with some of their relatives and they visited them together, after Steve admitted he couldn’t face going on his own in the years after his own return. Their families were all gracious and welcoming, and they spent long evenings reminiscing about the men they had all loved and lost. 

The imagery of the poppy wreathed memorial stuck with Bucky, and it was what he based his tattoo on. Steve drew beautiful poppies that would decorate Bucky’s wrist, and in the end would serve as the only pop of colour on his otherwise black and white arm.

The next tattoo was Steve’s idea and the only one Bucky changed without telling him. It was a koi fish, a symbol of growth and courage that came to mean so much more to both of them. Bucky had heard the legend of the koi fish, that they’ll stay as small as the pool they’re put in, but grow and grow if they’re allowed space, and it resonated with him, despite its inaccuracy. When he was made into the Winter Soldier he was given no room for himself; everything was white noise and the only thing he was allowed to focus on was whatever mission he was assigned. His world was as small as the black chair they tortured him in and the cryo chamber he slept decades away in. Now, his life was as big as he wanted. His recovery had been going better than anybody had ever dreamed and his future lay out before him, his for the taking. He could grow into whatever person he wanted to be. 

The drawing Steve presented him with was stunning. The illustration of the koi fish would wrap around his elbow and forearm, the minimalist lines Steve had drawn were simple, but showed subtle shining of scales that would shift with his arm. It was beautiful, and Bucky couldn’t wait to have it on his arm. But something about it didn’t feel right. After all, he wasn’t the only one who had survived against the odds and now had a bright future ahead of him, nor was he the only one who had grown as a person (both figuratively and literally in this case) - the koi fish didn’t just remind him of himself, it reminded him of Steve as well. Bucky wanted a second fish on his arm, this one slightly smaller and swimming alongside the other, both fish curved toward the other protectively. Wanting it to be a surprise, he went through Steve’s sketchbook knowing he would find earlier drafts of the drawing that might work, and sure enough he found an illustration that fit perfectly with what he wanted.  
When Steve saw the finished product inked masterfully onto Bucky’s skin, he gently took his outstretched arm and marvelled over it, before looking up with tears in his eyes, pulling Bucky in for a desperate kiss.

His tattoo sleeve wasn’t quite complete and yet Bucky wasn’t in a rush to fill up all the spaces immediately. Even in the past two years he had met so many people that had touched his life, and done so many things he never thought he could, that he was sure before long he would have more memories he would want to commemorate permanently. 

He couldn’t wait.


End file.
